Dark Trinity: Jodie Foster not a fan of superhero movies . . . ok?

In an interview with the Radio Times, Jodie Foster denounced superhero movies. You can read the entire article by Michel Hodges, which covers here career and other things, here, but here’s the excerpt we care about:

“Studios making bad content in order to appeal to the masses and shareholders is like fracking – you get the best return right now but you wreck the Earth. It’s ruining the viewing habits of the American population and then ultimately the rest of the world. I don’t want to make $200m movies about superheroes.”

Look, if you don’t want in on superhero movies, be a viewer or an actor, fine by me. Don’t think most people who like superhero or other comic book-related movies and shows are going to try convincing you. Personally, I say stop trying to start that conversation and just leave. Seriously, go away. We have enough to argue about within the genre, whether the DCEU can make another MCU-esque movie like Wonder Woman or who’s the best Batman, among so many others things. Fun arguments, but arguments nonetheless.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s look at the major message she has for the Hollywood sell-outs.

First off, “bad content”? Maybe she’s only seen Ben Affleck as Daredevil, both Chris Evans’s Fantastic Four and Miles Teller’s Fantastic Four and all the DCEU movies besides Wonder Woman. Not that I HATE all those movies, but let’s be honest here. For the most part they’ve had interesting stories with awesome character development, running across multiple movies. Captain America and Iron Man have changed so much since their first movies, if that’s not character development I don’t know what is.

And the movies are all based on books so they aren’t original ideas. Fine. But most awesome movies aren’t ideas pulled out of thin air. LOTS are based on books. So the whole bad content notion is absurd. Unless you hate action, then I get it. I feel sorry for you because you probably hate puppies and ice cream, too.

Anyways . . . on to the bigger point: “It’s ruining the viewing habits of the American population and then ultimately the rest of the world.”

Ruining our what???? Listen pal, plenty of people still like romantic movies, dramas and movies from other genres. I’ll say this, the standard for an action movie has grown, because there’ve been plenty that were just action, no acting, before the MCU. That’s changed.

What hasn’t, people still like Lady Bird – I won’t watch it, but that’s not because of superhero movies – and people still like the classics. People just don’t waste their time on dumb movies to ruin droughts. Droughts don’t happen anymore, between good non-superhero movies, good superhero movies and Netflix/Amazon/Hulu.

And honestly Ms. Foster, people don’t like bad superhero movies either! Batman v. Superman, Suicide Squad, Man of Steel, the Hulk movie in the MCU and the one outside of it. I didn’t even hate Batman v. Superman, but it’s definitely not a good movie.

To assume people are going to have fine taste for movies just because you feed them these elegant, thoughtful films is asinine. People don’t just enjoy entertainment because it’s all you feed them. There are so many other influences in their lives that lead people to like different movies and characters.

But again, you don’t like superhero movies, that’s A-OK. Just STOP TALKING ABOUT THEM!